


Comforting

by Witchgirl1234



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Some Fluff, mention of OC death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witchgirl1234/pseuds/Witchgirl1234
Summary: Avalance prompt: Ava awkwardly finds Sara crying (after storming off after a petty argument with another legend) because she’s been repressing everything and is letting the really small things get to her. Ava shares a story of how someone in her life died. Avalance ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just thought I should put a warning for angst here, I gave Ava quite a sad backstory lol

Ava pulled at the bright red jumper and frowned down as she tried to find a way to make it less scratchy. When nothing seemed to work, she blew out a breath of frustration and scowled at the fabricator in front of her.

She had asked for a low-key Christmas jumper but Gideon had obviously thought that it was funny or something to give her a bright red monstrosity adorned with a tree with real lights on it (which she was never planning to turn on). For a moment, she considered that she could simply ask for something else, but she had no doubt that the futuristic AI would simply make her something much, much worse and complaining would only mean that the next time she asked for help from the computer, she was likely to receive nothing.

She was also sure that whatever she wore, one of the Legends would be likely to insult her anyway, so this would have to do.

"Thanks Gideon," she grumbled and grabbed the bottle of beer she had been handed the moment she walked onto the Waverider.

"You're welcome, Agent Sharpe," the AI replied, sounding far too chipper to have not been messing with her on purpose.

Ava rolled her eyes and brought the bottle to her lips to take a long swig as she began her walk down the hallway towards the little party that the crew of the time ship had put on for Christmas. When she had said 'see you again' to Sara, she hadn't quite planned for it to be so soon after she left, but when the captain sent her a message to invite her, she couldn't think of a single reason that she couldn't come. She no longer found the idea of being around the Legends utterly repugnant, in fact, after returning Beebo Day to Christmas, she would even go as far as to say that she rather enjoyed their company, not that she was quite prepared to say as much out loud. There was also the fact that she didn't really think that it would make sense to refuse the invitation just so that she could go back to an empty apartment. Since joining the Bureau she hadn't actually been home to see her family, ironically, because she never felt as though there was enough time, and also because she wasn't allowed to tell them what she actually did for a living. As much as she missed her parents, she couldn't help but feel like she would have absolutely nothing that she could talk about.

The agent was brought out of her reverie by the sound of smashing and a little squeal.

Ava quickly realised that she was now standing at the doorway of the kitchen where the party was happening and her eyes were drawn over to the origin of the sound. One of the glasses appeared to have smashed on the ground at Nate's feet and Sara's white jumper was covered in red wine.

"Oh my god, Sara, I'm so sorry…" Nate began and raised his hands as if to help, but he quickly decided against it when it must of occurred to him what part of her body he was about to try and touch.

Ava quirked an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest as she looked over to Sara. From what she knew about the assassin, she would just accept the apology and go and change her jumper. However, her tense expression, and the slight colour to her cheeks indicating that she was not quite sober, told another story.

"How can you be so irresponsible, Nate?!" the blonde snapped.

Citizen Steel looked utterly terrified at her uncharacteristic response and he simply opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking very much like a floundering fish.

The room was completely silent as each of the Legends looked at Sara, as if waiting for her to say that she was simply kidding, but Sara seemed to take the silence as an opportunity to continue:

"You're a grown ass man with superpowers, can't you just act like a fucking adult for once in your life!"

Nate seemed to finally regain his facilities and briefly looked around the room like he was checking to make sure that he wasn't the only one hearing this.

"It's just wine, Sara," he finally said, "I'll go and get you a new sweater…."

"Don't bother," Sara replied sharply, "I'll get it myself."

With that, she stormed out of the room, seemingly not even noticing that Ava was stood in the doorway.

The room remained silent for a moment, before Mick broke it by saying, "I don't think that was about the sweater…"

Ava rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder before she looked back over to the room. No one appeared ready to go after the captain and the agent sighed in resignation as she turned on her heels to go back towards the fabrication room.

However, she didn't make it all the way down the hallway before she found the captain with her knees drawn up to her face, sat leaning against the wall. Her shoulders were shaking slightly as she silently cried and Ava considered for a moment that she should go and get Amaya to talk to her since she didn't do too well with emotions. There was also the fact that the last time she had a conversation with Sara about loss, she had only seemed to upset her more.

However, she decided that she could handle this and moved to take a seat next to the blonde, making sure to leave enough distance so that they were not touching. For about ten seconds, she simply sat with her legs crossed and waited for Sara to look up since there was no way that the ex-League of Assassins member didn't know that there was someone next to her.

Sara took a deep breath when she realised that the agent was not going to leave until she talked to her and she forced herself to push her head up off her lap so that she could look at the woman. In any other circumstances, she would have made a joke about the jumper, even if she found the sight of Ava Sharpe in anything other than a pantsuit adorable. However, this was not the time for jokes, nor was it the time for her to be thinking about how adorable the agent looked in her light-up Christmas jumper.

"Sorry you had to see that…" she began, but she trailed off when she saw that the look on Ava's face meant that she didn't need to apologise for it. In fact, she was fairly certain that the agent would say the same things to Nate given half the chance.

"As much as I agree with your assessment of Mr Haywood, it was just spilled wine, I'm sure there has been more appropriate times to berate him," Ava said, raising her eyebrow in the way that drove Sara crazy.

The blonde took a deep breath and nodded, "it wasn't about the wine…"

"Really?" the agent asked, feigning surprise.

Sara rolled her eyes, but there was a distinct smile tugging at the corner of her lips. It was weird how the presence of one person could make her feel so much better, but she decided that was not something that she needed to address right now.

"Putting things in a repression box doesn't work," she replied after a moment of consideration.

Ava drew her eyebrows together and frowned, "am I supposed to know what that means?"

The blonde bit her inside of her cheek when she realised that she would actually have to say things out-loud. She could just jump up to her feet and go to the fabrication room. Once she returned the party, it wouldn't take much to apologise to Nate and simply blame the alcohol (not that anyone would believe her since her tolerance was legendary). However, she couldn't resist the thought that talking to someone who was not on her team would give her a unique opportunity to get an outside view, it helped with their mission, so she saw no reason why Ava wouldn't be willing to help with feelings.

"Martin…" Sara practically mumbled.

"Oh…" Ava replied, suddenly feeling very stupid for not realising before. "This is your first Christmas without him on the ship…"

Sara nodded and looked down at her lap, "Jax just announced that he's leaving the team for a while and just before Nate spilled his wine, I was just very aware that Martin wasn't here…"

The agent nodded in return and bit her inside of her cheek. She thought of many things that she was 'supposed' to say, but none of them seemed adequate in this moment. There was one thing that came to mind, but she wasn't sure if it was appropriate to say it when she and Sara were only just now becoming something resembling friends. But when she looked at the tear tracks on Sara's cheeks, she decided that she needed to go with the option that would make her feel better the fastest, since the idea of the most badass woman she had ever met being sad made her want to help quickly.

"I don't go home for the holidays anymore…" she started.

Sara frowned and looked at the other woman questioningly, but Ava raised her hand reassuringly:

"This has a point, trust me?" she asked.

The blonde nodded for her to continue and Ava had to stop herself from sighing out a breath of relief.

Ava was silent for a moment before she continued, "I tell myself that I don't visit because I have to keep my job a secret and we would have nothing to talk about but the truth is that I never really went to see my parents before Rip recruited me…" the agent fell back into silence and swallowed hard when she realised that she was bringing back memories that had been repressed for a while now, shockingly fixing time offered an excellent distraction from thoughts and feelings, especially after the time stream was broken by a band of morons. A hand being placed over hers, however, brought her out of the moment of silence and she smiled when she realised that the hand was the captain's, who nodded again for her to continue:

"My senior year of college, I was pulling an all-nighter so I turned my phone off to focus…when I turned it on in the morning, I had about a million missed calls and messages," Ava explained and swallowed hard before she recited the part of the report that she had read more than she would ever admit that she had, "at 2.32 am, my brother was hit by a drunk driver on his way home, my parents were trying to call me because we both have rare blood types and they needed me to…"

Sara squeezed the other woman's hand as hard as she could, telling her that she didn't need to finish the obviously traumatic part of the story because she got the point.

Ava smiled almost in appreciation, before she sniffed and said, "the point is that it's hard to go home knowing that he isn't there. Everything about that house and that town would just remind me that I wasn't there when they needed me, but I feel so guilty every time I remember how long it's been since I've seen my parents and I would hope that they want me to come home as well. Martin, on the other hand, died to protect the team. I didn't know him very well, but I think that proves that he wouldn't want his death to tear the team apart…I know that my brother would kill me if he found out that I haven't been home in years."

Sara tilted her head at the woman who she had once never thought had any kind of life before working for Rip, she couldn't help but feel so much closer to her now that she knew something so painful. For a moment, she wished that she hadn't put her into a situation whereby she needed to share a painful memory, but at the same time, she couldn't help but be so grateful thats he had someone who would bare their soul just to make her feel better.

"So I should apologise to Nate is what you're saying?" Sara asked.

Ava nodded smiled in an effort too try and rid her eyes of the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she was more relieved than anything; both because she had never had the opportunity to talk about her past with anyone who would understand the loss of a sibling like Sara Lance did, and because she could tell by how much more relaxed the captain looked, that she had helped her.

The pair fell into silence for a couple moments, before Ava looked down at her hand and realised that they were still basically holding hands. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked into Sara's blue eyes in the hopes that she would realise where her hand was and would move it so that they could go back to the party and pretend that they had never been this physically close. She hadn't noticed before now, but they appeared to have moved closer to each other as she told the story.

Sara finally did realise what Ava's expression meant and thought about doing exactly what she wanted. However, the longer that she looked into the agent's eyes, the more she began to decide against that course of action.

With the vulnerability still playing across Ava's features that was still mixed with concern, the captain couldn't help but think that she looked more beautiful than she did adorable.

It was for this reason that instead of moving away, she leaned in and connected their lips in one swift motion. They remained that position for a couple seconds as Sara gave Ava time to move away and tell her that she wasn't interested in that way.

When the time passed, Ava seemed to realise what was happening and she felt all of the tensions in her body fall away. As much as she would deny that she wanted this to happen before it did, in that moment, the captain's lips were so much softer than she would have ever thought possible. So instead of moving away, she raised a hand to the blonde's cheek to pull her impossibly closer and she deepened the kiss.

Oxygen became a necessity and they parted, though their faces remained closer together than they had ever been before, and Ava used her hand on Sara's cheek to wipe a tear away.

"Woah," someone said and Sara and Ava each looked over to the source, but they didn't jump apart like they probably would have done if this had happened before.

Nate looked between them and seemed as though he would rather be anywhere but there right now; in fact, he was distinctly worried that he was about be yelled at by the captain again, but this time for interrupting what looked like a very special moment, he was also very worried that the agent would jump in.

"I…err…I just came to see if you was okay…but I can go…" he stuttered as his eyes shifted between the two women.

Sara smiled at him and moved away from Ava so that she could jump to her feet, "calm down, Nate," she laughed, "we'll be right in after I change…and I'm sorry…for calling you irresponsible…"

Nate seemed to brighten at this. He didn't need a reason for the out burst, he just felt better knowing that it wasn't about him.

"It's cool, I'll be more careful next time," he replied.

Sara smiled at him for a moment longer before she turned to the still seated agent and extended her hand to help her up. Once Ava was standing up, she didn't let go of her hand and began to pull her towards the clothes fabricator.

"You need help taking off your sweater?" Nate called once they were far enough down the hallway that he was sure that he wouldn't be smacked for the innuendo.

Sara just smirked as Ava rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, though her smiled betrayed her amusement.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should probably warn of more angst than I initially planned but I can't help myself, I can promise a happy ending though :)

Part two-

-One year later-

It had been just shy of a year since the Christmas party and Sara had to admit that it had been perhaps one of the best years of her life.

The Legends helped to take down Mallus and, thanks to Ava and Rip, the Time Bearau recognised that their help. That meant that the team was no longer been monitored by a team of agents, which was probably helped that Agent Sharpe had now all but formally joined the team. She didn't come on every mission with them, but Rip seemed to recognise the fact that the agent would much rather be tasked with helping them than anything else now that her and Sara were officially an item.

The team were currently facing another big bad, but he had seemed to gone silent for now, which meant that the captain of the Waverider was able to simply enjoy herself in what she thought could possibly be a perfect moment.

The team had returned the night before from a mission in Shakespearean England, during which they made a complete mess of stopping the theft of the first copy of Macbeth. Of course, everything had ended up fine in the end after quite a bit of further messes, but it was no worse than normal. In fact, Ava didn't even bother to comment upon the way the mission went since she had long ago become accustomed to the Legends, unless they did something particularly stupid.

Sara smiled down at the sleeping woman as she propped herself up on her hand to get a better view of her girlfriend. Her smile only widened as that word came into her mind, even if they had been together for quite a while now, the captain still couldn't quite get used to that word. After all, she was Nyssa 'beloved' never her girlfriend, and she still wasn't quite sure what she was to Oliver since they had been too afraid to label anything in an effort to spare Laurel's feelings around the whole matter.

Ava had looked at the blonde like she was crazy when she looked surprised at being called her girlfriend for the first time and Sara smiled fondly at the memory. Their first relationship-related argument had quickly turned into cuddling after that.

"Stop that," a groggy voice interrupted Sara's reminiscence and the blonde looked down at Ava. Her eyes were still closed, but the upward quirk of her lips betrayed the fact that she was actually awake, or at least slowly getting there.

"Stop what?" Sara asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

"Watching me sleep," Ava replied, "it's not quite as romantic as you think it is."

The captain laughed at this and allowed her head to fall back down, but it landed onto the taller woman's shoulder rather than the pillow. As if on instinct, the agent brought her arm around the former assassin's waist and pulled her closer.

"But you look cute when you're sleeping," Sara pouted, completely failing at looking genuinely upset.

Ava finally decided to open her eyes and frowned at the shorter woman, "are you saying that I'm not cute when I'm awake?"

Sara shook her head and burrowed closer to the other woman, who promptly tightened her hold around her.

"You're beautiful when you're awake," she replied.

Ava just shook her head, but she couldn't think of another quip to shoot back. She had long since given up telling Sara how cheesy she could be, especially when they were in the privacy of the captain's quarters since she could no longer help but find it endearing. After all, who wouldn't want to wake up to being told that they're beautiful?

The taller woman smiled and leaned down to press a quick and chaste kiss to the blonde's lips, before she attempted to sit up. However, she found herself being held in place and she resisted the urge to sigh, this was another thing that she had gotten used to and couldn't find herself caring too much about. She would much rather stay in this bed with her girlfriend for the rest of the day, which as why she allowed herself to move her other arm across her and she let her eyes flutter shut.

However, as she knew was about to happen (since it happened every time she stayed over on the Waverider), a beeping interrupted the peaceful moment and Sara groaned audibly.

The blonde finally released her girlfriend and turned over to turn the alarm off.

"Can you just join the Legends already? We don't force people to get up at the butt crack of dawn…"

"It's 7.30, Sara," Ava replied, and brought her arm around the other woman's shoulder when she leaned her head against her shoulder, clearly planning to go back to sleep.

"Same difference," she mumbled against the taller woman's shoulder.

The Agent rolled her eyes, "I have to led my own team today so you'll have to lead your merry band without my help," she smirked.

Sara's head shot off the other woman's shoulder and she narrowed her eyes at the insinuation that she needed help to be captain. Any rebuttal that she had planned died on her tongue though when she saw the smirk on her girlfriend's face and realised that she was only trying to get her off her shoulder so that she could actually go back to her apartment and get ready for work.

"You know that you're lucky I love you, Agent Sharpe," Sara sighed and feel back down to her pillow as a sign that she was finally letting her leave, though it was very clearly reluctant.

Ava quirked an eyebrow at the petulant woman, before she leaned down and stole another kiss.

With her face still very close to the blonde's, she whispered, "I love you too, Captain Lance," before she placed another, and slightly longer, kiss onto her lips and then slipped backwards onto her feet.

Sara didn't even bother watching as the taller woman activated her Time Courier, since there was nothing that she hated more than Ava Sharpe leaving the Waverider, even if she understood that she had to,

Instead, she allowed herself to simply lay in her bed for a few moments longer with a massive smile on her face. Somehow it never got old hearing the agent say that three words and it only served to make her want to execute what she had been planning for a few weeks now.

It was for this reason that she didn't go back to sleep, as she most likely would have if Ava had stayed with her. She jumped out of bed with more energy than she had the right to have and grabbed a jacket.

She pulled her arms through the sleeves as she made her way down the halls of the time ship and she made her way quickly to kitchen.

Just like clockwork, a certain totem-holder was sat at the counter with a mug of coffee next to her as she typed away at the laptop. Zari was completely deaf to the world as she silently danced with her earbuds in and continued whatever she was hacking this morning.

Sara found that it was usually best to just leave her to it when she was in the mode, but Zari had told her that she'd found something the previous day but when promptly shut her mouth about it when Ava had arrived to assist them with the mission.

The captain knew that she could simply wait until later, when she and Zari were not the only two awake on the ship, but there was no way that she would be able to go back to sleep now and it wasn't like she had Ava right now to pass the time with.

It was for this reason that she just walked forward and pulled the earbuds out in one swift motion and looked at Zari expectantly.

The woman winced as pain bloomed in her ears and quickly went away. She then narrowed her eyes at whoever would dare to do such a thing, but she quickly unclenched when she was that it was the captain. As much as she despised having her morning routine disrupted, she had been itching to convey her success for a while now and the right opportunity had not yet arisen.

"Did you find them?" Sara asked as she practically bounced on the balls of her feet in excitement.

Zari pressed a few keys on her laptop before she turned it around to show the screen to the captain.

"Harvey and Emma Sharpe live in Lancaster," she replied.

Sara frowned at the screen as she tried to take in all of the lines of information, but her mind had not fully woken up past her excitement.

"How do you know that this is them?"

Zari rolled her eyes at the blonde, as if she was actually insulted that she was being questioned, but she still pointed at the screen and read out, "two dependants registered at this address: Ava Sharpe and Declan Sharpe."

"How old is this record?" Sara asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"Your girlfriend was about sixteen," Zari shrugged, "but I figured that they wouldn't move, right?"

Sara frowned as she considered this. It could honestly go either way since she didn't know much about these people other than the fact that she loved their daughter. But she had no idea if they were the type of people to try and get away from a major loss, like the death of their son, or if they were the type to want to stay with the memories.

"It would explain why I can't find anything more up-to-date…" Zari reasoned.

Sara just nodded slowly, she figured that the worst that could happen would be that she would be told that they no longer lived there.

"I've sent all of their info to Gideon, so you can get the address from her," the totem holder replied as she reached to put her earbuds back in.

Before she could, however, she felt her wrist being grabbed by the captain.

"What am I supposed to say to them?" Sara asked, suddenly looking very pale.

Zari tilted her head and sighed, "you could just say, 'hey Mr and Mrs Sharpe, you don't know me, can I marry your daughter?'"

Sara dropped her arm and placed her head in her hands and shook it in frustration.

"Oh God, they need to meet me first, right?"

"You think?" Zari shot back.

"But Ava hasn't seen them in so long…I can't just show up…" Sara sighed and fell onto the seat next to Zari, she was now realising that she hadn't thought everything through when she asked the other woman to find out Ava's parents' names. She knew that she wanted the proposal to be as traditional and romantic as possible since Ava was secretly a very romantic person underneath all of the quips. And, even if they didn't talk about it often, she knew that Ava wanted to see her parents, but the longer the time that elapsed the less likely she was to ever actually go.

"Do you think that she would hate me if I called them without telling her?" Sara asked after a moment.

Zari tilted her head, at first that sounded like the worst plan the captain had ever uttered, but she had a feeling that she knew where she was heading with it in her mind.

"Probably, but she would still love you," she replied.

s

Sara took a couple of deep breaths as she made sure that everything was in the to-go bag from Big Belly Burger. She knew that it was just a stalling tactic since she had been afraid to have this conversation for the past two days.

Ava had sent her a message to say that she would be gone for the next two days on an assignment and as much as Sara had missed the other woman, it had given her time to think about what she had done not long after talking to Zari.

She had gone to her office and stared at the Sharpe's information on the screen for about half-an-hour before she finally instructed Gideon to call the number Zari had found with their information. After three rings, Sara began to convince herself that there was no way that they would have the same number that they had when their daughter was sixteen and she was about to tell the AI to end the call; however, the sound of 'hello?' coming through the captain's comms have cut her off. The conversation had gone much better than than she had expected it to.

She explained to the woman on the other end of the phone that she was Ava's girlfriend and that she wanted to know if it was possible to come and visit for Christmas. Emma Sharpe had sounded absolutely delighted (and perhaps a little tearful?) at the prospect and had instantly agreed to an arrangement for the pair to come and visit on Christmas Eve. She had probably not questioned the fact that Ava hadn't called her herself because it had been so long, but Sara was sure that she thought that Ava at least knew that she would be seeing her parents soon.

This was precisely why Sara was freaking out in the present. What the hell was she going to do if Ava flat out refused to visit? It wasn't like Sara could go on her own and she didn't want to have call the excited woman back and come up with some pathetic excuse that she would probably figure out meant that her daughter didn't want to visit them.

Sara puffed out her cheeks in frustration and looked around her office for a few moments. She finally decided that standing there was not doing anything for her, she would probably figure out what to say when she saw Ava… she hoped.

With the lunch in her hand, she pressed the button on the Time Courier that she could finally say actually belonged to her since the bureau had given it to her after their win against Mallus. The 'doorway' promptly opened and she took a breath to steel her nerves before she stepped through it.

As she expected, Ava was sat behind her desk in her office filling out paperwork for whatever mission she had been on for the last two days. She had told Sara, but the blonde had found that her mind was too preoccupied to remember at this point.

"Hey," the agent smiled broadly, a far cry from the scowl that Sara would have received just a year ago.

Sara returned the smile, though not quite as broadly as she usually would and she placed the two burger orders on the desk.

"I figured you would be hungry," Sara said as she walked around the desk to claim the kiss that she thought she deserved after two girlfriend-less days. Though she kept it brief since she was aware that Ava was still technically at work, even if this was her last day before Christmas vacation. The ex-assassin pulled a chair around so that she could sit as close to the agent as could be considered 'professional' and she pulled the bag towards her to present the burger she had brought for her.

Ava smiled at this and reached forward to close her laptop so that she could accept the offered food.

"It still amazes me that you always seem to know when I want something," she laughed as she unwrapped the burger.

Sara bit the inside of her cheek. She would usually just say thats he was just the best girlfriend ever, but she didn't feel quite as confident about that statement right now as she usually did.

Ava frowned at captain and tilted her head in concern. She would have usually already begun eating her burger by now, but the bag remained untouched on her desk and the blonde's shoulders were slumped with her hands clasped between her knees.

The Agent placed her lunch back onto the desk and reached out to take Sara's hand in her own, "are you okay?" she asked.

The blonde realised what she was doing and quickly straightened up her posture, though she didn't allow her hand to slip out of the other woman's.

"I…I'm not sure that you'll say that I always know what you want if I tell you what I did…" the captain replied and looked firmly down at her knees. Now that she was faced with Ava, she was increasingly beginning to think that she had royally messed up. She wouldn't have liked if someone arranged for her to see her parents after all of the years of avoiding of them, even if it was because they had thought that she was dead. What would she do if Ava actually broke up with her for this? It would have all been for nothing if she didn't go to see her parents and she couldn't exactly propose to her ex-girlfriend.

"Sara?" Ava repeated when she realised that the woman hadn't heard it the first time and she squeezed her hand tighter to get her attention. "Whatever you did can't be that bad…you broke time and I still agreed to go out with you, remember?"

The captain actually allowed herself to smile a little at this, but the smile quickly fell and she shifted in her seat as she tried to figure out what she could say. Eventually, however, she decided that there was no other way than to just come out and say it.

"Before our first kiss, you told me that your brother would kill you if he knew that you hadn't seen your parents in years…" Sara began and she felt a lump form in her throat when Ava instantly released her hand and narrowed her eyes at her.

"What did you do?" she asked, far less softly than she had just spoken.

"I got Zari to track them down and I…called them…" Sara cringed, "they said that they would love to have us round for Christmas Eve…"

Ava's mouth fell open and she blinked a couple of times as she tried to take this in.

"You…spoke to my parents?" she asked slowly after a moment of consideration.

"Just your mom…" Sara replied, desperately looking for any sign that this could possibly be okay, she didn't find one in that moment. "She sounded really excited…"

"And what am I supposed to say to them, Sara?" Ava suddenly shot back, not even allowing the shorter woman to finish their sentence, "sorry for not visiting for seven years, I've been busy fixing time, oh and here is my girlfriend, she's the one who fucked up time in the first place!"

Sara winced at this and she swallowed hard, she had most definitely not thought this through.

"You don't have to tell them that you work for the time bureau, just say that you work for an agency and you can't talk about it…"

Ava just held up her hand to silence the woman and shook her head.

"I thought the fact that you never think your plans through was endearing, but this…this is just idiotic."

"They're your parents, they have the right åo see one of…" Sara clamped her mouth shut and wished that she could just go back in time and break Zari's computer or something.

"They have the right to see one of their children?" Ava finished incredulously.

"I didn't…that isn't…" Sara just growled in frustration and raked her fingers through her hair.

The agent looked down, though it did nothing to stop Sara from seeing the tears in her eyes.

The blonde was about to reach forward to try and wipe away a stray tear, but the motion was cut short when the device on her writs began to beep. She frowned and looked at it to see a message from Nate.

"They tried to fix a level 11 Anachronism without me," Sara groaned and raised her other hand to massage her temple. She would have seriously been fine with this happening at any other time than now, Ava would hate her if she left and she would hate her if she left her team without a captain on a level 11.

"Just go," the agent said, refusing to look up from her lap, "I'm not hungry anymore."

Sara cringed and she was about to protest that they needed to talk about this, but the beeping on her wrist only became more insistent.

The blonde practically growled and pressed the speaker on the Time Courier, "I'm coming," she shouted.

The captain stood from her chair and looked at Agent Sharpe who was still refusing to make eye contact. The second that she looked at her felt like minutes as she considered if the woman really wanted her to leave. She knew that there was nothing else that she could say right now after her monumental slip of the tongue, but she also didn't want to leave it like this. What would she do if Ava never talked to her again?

However, she decided that it was best to just give the woman some space to think things through, hopefully she would realise that she had good intentions here, even if she had gone the absolute wrong way about it.

"I…love you, Ava," Sara said when she decided that she couldn't leave saying nothing and she pressed the button to open a portal to wherever her team were. She waited a second and when she didn't get a reply, she stepped through.

Once the portal closed, the agent placed her hand against her face and shook her head, though she still found herself muttering, "I love you too, you idiot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this kind of got longer than I had planned so there will now be a third and final part as soon as I have the time to write it :)  
> Feel free to come and talk to me on Tumblr @withgirl-sq, I'm still open for Avalance prompts XD


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this kind of escalated and there will be another chapter and an epilogue lol   
> Sorry it took so long, I'll try and get the next one up in the next two weeks :)

Part three

"Sara, you need to stop that."

The blonde blinked and looked up from the open velvet box placed before her on the bed in her quarters. In her focus, she hadn't noticed Amaya opening her door.

"Doing what?" the captain asked.

"Stop staring at the ring and go and talk to your girlfriend," the other woman replied and pushed herself off the doorframe so that she could go and sit on the bed. "It's Christmas Eve tomorrow and you can't just stand her parents up…"

"I can't go alone and I can't drag her to Lancaster," Sara replied, "maybe I should just call them back and come up with some excuse?"

Amaya shook her head when Sara looked up to her hopefully. The woman was aware that she was by far the most mature person on this ship, but that didn't mean that she knew the best way to deal with this situation. She did, however, know for a fact that Sara needed to stop moping in her quarters while looking at the ring that she so desperately wanted to give to her girlfriend. Amaya was beginning to slightly regret the suggestion that she had made to the captain when the blonde had first made her intentions to marry Ava clear that she would need to talk to her parents first. But after Ava had met Quinton and Dinah Lance, Sara had seemed so happy and Amaya couldn't shake the feeling that Ava would have felt the same if Sara was to meet her parents.

"You should go and talk to Ava before you do anything," Amaya replied.

Sara just shook her head and looked back down to the ring, "Ava was supposed to spend her vacation on the Waverider, I think that the fact that she isn't here means that she doesn't want to talk to me."

The totem-holder sighed and shook her head again, she had never thought that Sara Lance could look so much like a kicked puppy, but she could only assume that it only went to prove how much she really loved her girlfriend.

Amaya took a deep breath and thought back to what she and Zari had agreed to say to the captain when she had been psyching herself up for this, but she was interrupted by the sound of Gideon's voice:

"Captain, you have a visitor waiting for you in the library, Agent Sharpe said that she needs to talk to you."

Sara shot up and snapped the velvet box shut in one swift motion and she quickly stuffed it into her bed-side table as if the AI had just told her that Ava was about to barge into the room.

Amaya's eyebrows shot up at the utter panic growing on the captain's face and said, "isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

Sara looked horrified for a moment, but shook her head vehemently, Amaya rolled her eyes and came forward to pull the blonde off the bed.

"Go and talk to your girlfriend, right now," she instructed and began to push her out of the room. However, before she was out of the room, Amaya pulled her back and inspected the shorter woman.

"Do you think that you should change first?"

Sara frowned down at her body. She was in sweats and hadn't really had any reason to changed since the anachronism was resolved.

About ten minutes later, Sara walked slowly to the library, now wearing a pair of skinny jeans with rips at the knees and a white tank top. As she got closer she tugged at the top and tried to convince herself that she should go and change into something else since that would post pone the conversation.

She couldn't get past the thought that Ava was planning to break up with her since she would have usually just used her time courier to come straight to the captain's quarters, but then again it wasn't as if they'd had any major fights like this one so she wasn't exactly sure what the rules were here.

Ultimately, she forced herself not to go back to the clothe's fabricator and just went to the door of the library.

Sara swallowed hard when she saw her girlfriend standing with her back to her and arms crossed as she looked at the various items on the shelves. The blonde felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips when she thought about how the Agent Sharpe she had originally met all that time ago would react to some of the 'trophies' she and her teammates had taken from some of their more notable missions. However, her slight smile fell when she realised that she would not be able to just stare at Ava's back forever.

It was for this reason that she cleared her throat and crossed her own arms over her chest as she walked further into the room.

"Hey," she said, desperately hoping that she didn't look too rough after her days without sunlight.

Ava turned around and smiled, though it didn't look quite as natural as it would have before their fight.

"Hey," she replied.

Sara swallowed hard again. Even if she had seen Ava wearing casual clothes with her hair down so many times in the last year, there was still always something about it that took her breath away for at least a second.

That second passed and she made her way across the room so that she could lean against the desk and look at the woman expectantly.

"Gideon said that you wanted to talk to me," Sara said.

Ava nodded slowly, still keeping her distance from the shorter blonde.

"It's more that I want to apologise…"

Sara frowned and started shaking her head, "you have nothing to apologise…"

The agent held up her hand to stop Sara from launching into her own apology and said, "just let me get through this, okay?"

The captain just nodded and uncrossed her arms so that she could grip the desk, she just couldn't shake the idea that Ava was here to tell her that they would need to go back a purely professional relationship.

Ava took a deep breath and started her speech again:

"I came her to apologise…you was right the you said that Declan would be so mad at me and very time I think about it, I just get really…defensive," she said as she looked firmly at the ground, but she finally looked up at Sara and continued, "so I overreacted when you told me what you did. I mean…you definitely shouldn't have done it without thinking it through but I've been saying that is one of the things I love about you…so I shouldn't be surprised, right?"

Sara opened her mouth to defend herself, but she quickly decided against it and just smiled instead. She pushed herself from the dead and went over to hug the taller woman, who instinctively brought her own arms around the captain's shoulders.

"I love you too." Sara said against Ava's shoulder and closed her eyes for a second as she allowed herself to take in everything about her girlfriend she had missed, which had only been made worse by the thought that she might not be her girlfriend anymore after their fight. Sara opened her eyes and leaned up so that she could steal a quick chaste kiss, she figured that she shouldn't risk more than that considering that she had still messed up, even if she technically had been forgiven, the issue still remained.

Ava smiled at her once they were parted enough to maintain eye contact, though they still had their hands firmly on each other.

A few moments passed as they just stared at each other until Sara decided that they couldn't just do this forever.

"Do you want me to call your parents and say we can't come?" the blonde asked.

Ava returned with a strained smile and shook her head, "I already called them," she replied.

"Oh," Sara said, she couldn't help but feeling disappointment in her stomach at the though of not going to the meal. Amaya had gotten it into her mind that she couldn't pop the question until she had at least met them.

"They want us to get there for five and we're staying until Christmas morning, but then we need to leave to see your parents for your parents."

Sara quirked an eyebrow, "you called my parents?" she asked, she was tempted for a moment to ask how she knew when her birthday was considering they had never talked about it, but it occurred to her that she had read all of her files. The assassin just made a mental note that she would need to find out when Ava's was.

"Just your mom and she sounded thrilled," Ava replied with a growing smirk.

Sara just laughed and leaned up to steal another kiss.

"I love you so much," she sighed as she leaned against her shoulder and Ava pulled her closer.

s

Sara didn't sleep well that night, even with Ava now laying beside her again.

She was tempted to ask if they could just go now and make sure they arrive at five in Lancaster, but every time Sara looked over her shoulder, the agent was fast asleep. She had been surprised considering how anxious the agent had been when they had watched a movie with the other Legends but she would later find out that the other woman had very little sleep the nights before because she had been worrying over whether she should break her parents hearts by cancelling the promise of a visit that they had been waiting for.

In that moment, however, Sara was seriously questioning her decision.

What would she do if she went to all of this effort and Ava ended up saying 'no' to her proposal? She wasn't even completely sure if it was something that the other woman wanted.

Was she expecting to quit time travel and settle down? She knew thatch wasn't ready to give up being the captain of the Waverider, so what difference would marriage make? All it would mean is that Agent Sharpe would be her wife instead of her girlfriend, or would it be Agent Lance? Agent Sharpe-Lance? Agent Lance-Sharpe? Or would she be Captain Sharpe?

Sara closed her eyes and blew out one breath and then two until she felt the tension falling away from her muscles.

Finally. she turned around fully so that she could look at the sleeping woman next to her and she instantly felt herself relax as she watched the taller woman breath evenly.

In that moment, Sara decided that she had nothing to worry about. Tomorrow wasn't the proposal, it was just about introducing herself to Mr and Mrs Sharpe and maybe helping her girlfriend through some emotional trauma.

All she had to do was charm complete strangers whilst providing emotional support.

Sara sighed lightly and lay her head on Ava's shoulder as she cuddled closer to her and forced herself to close her eyes.

s

Ava bounced on the balls of her feet and looked around her. She wasn't quite sure how it was possible, but the neighbourhood looked exactly as it did the last time she was her…in 2010.

Snow was falling down on the front yards of all of the beautiful houses and she briefly wondered whether there was anyone new living here since her last visit.

A hand slipped into hers and the agent blinked out of the guilt trip that she was no doubt about to go on. The hand squeezed her own and she looked over to the shorter woman and smiled gratefully as she used her free hand to pull the strap of the overnight bag closer to her body.

"Are you sure about this?" Ava asked, not for the first time since they'd woken up that day.

Sara squeezed her hand again and replied, "if you're not ready, I'll call and come up with some excuse…"

The taller woman looked off to her side and she felt her throat constrict when she saw the spot where she had fallen off her bike when she was eight. Declan had freaked out and ran to get their mom because she was so worried that her scrapped knee was a life or death situation. Tears sprang to her eyes and she was very tempted to tell Sara that she should just make an excuse. However, she was cut short by the sound of the door opening ahead of them and the hand in hers tightened again in support.

"Ava," a woman called in complete and utter glee as she ran forward to crush the woman in a hug.

Sara blinked at the woman and released her girlfriend's hand so that she could return the hug. Somehow, when she had thought about meeting Ava's parents, it had never occurred to her that they would actually look like the agent. Apart from some smile lines and much shorter and darker hair, she could almost believe that Emma Sharpe was the same person.

The hug went on for a solid three seconds before the woman forced herself to release her daughter.

"How could I be so rude," the older Sharpe said as she turned to inspect Sara, "you must be Sara," she grinned broadly.

The shorter blonde looked at Ava to see if she was okay but she had an unreadable expression written across her face. Sara could only imagine that it was what she looked like when she got to talk to her mom after so many years.

Finally though, she realised that she was supposed to say something and she replied, "it's so great to meet you Mrs. Sharpe."

"Please, dear, call me Emma," she smiled broadly.

Sara nodded nodded and slipped her hand back into Ava's to jolt her out of her silence.

The agent reluctantly smiled at her mother. It was obvious that she cared about her mother, but Sara knew how awkward it was to see a family member after so long. She still thought about that night that Laurel yelled and sent her away from their family dinner, so this was pretty tame in comparison.

"Hi mom," Ava finally managed to say and the woman just smiled at her more broadly and seemed to take a moment to inspect her daughter. Once she decided that she was in one piece, she said, "please come inside, it's freezing out here."

"We'll be right in…Emma," Sara replied and smiled reassuringly. The older woman seemed to understand exactly what Sara intended to do and her smile had a hint of sadness as turned to her daughter she said:

"I'll be in the kitchen with your father," before she went into the house and left the door open behind her.

Once the captain was sure that Emma Sharpe was out of earshot, she turned back to Ava and took her girlfriend's other hand so that she was holding both.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked, and squeezed her hand so that the agent would look at her in the eye.

"I…I'm not sure…" Ava mumbled, before she seemed to gain more confidence when it occurred to her that she was talking to the woman she trusted most in the world and she asked, "should it be that difficult to talk to my mom?"

Sara shook her head, "my mom doesn't know that I'm a time traveler so we don't have a lot to talk about either, but I would never pass up the chance to spend time with her…"

Ava looked back down at the ground as she thought back to her previous couple visits to Sara's family. The captain had been reluctant to go and see Dinah and Quentin since she wasn't sure that she would be able to see them knowing that Laurel wouldn't be there, so she had asked Ava to go with her. The conversation had be stilted and awkward but the family had soon found plenty to talk about, even about Laurel. Suddenly, Ava felt guilty for ever being angry at her girlfriend for this plan. Even if she should have spoken to her about it before, she couldn't exactly deny that the captain knew exactly what she was going through, with the only difference being that she dealt with her loss in a much more uncharacteristically mature way than she ever had.

It was for this reason that instead of replying, the taller blonde leaned down and placed and quick, chaste kiss to the other woman's lips.

Sara frowned at the action and asked, "what was that for?"

"I've been kind of a bitch about all of this and I just wanted to apologise again," Ava replied.

The shorter woman frowned for a moment longer before it turned into a small grin, "you really don't have anything to apologise for," she said, before she leaned up to steal another kiss.

She released one of the agent's hands so that she could begin to pull her towards the open door, "we should go before your mom comes looking for us."

Ava allowed herself to be pulled along behind the ex-assassin until they reached the open door and she closed it behind them. The taller of the pair sucked in a breath as she looked around the entry way, it looked exactly the same as it had the last time she had been here.

She wasn't at all surprised to find pictures of Declan everywhere, but she'd had this irrational thought that if she ever returned home she would find that all the evidence that they had a daughter would be removed. However, most of the pictures of her brother also had her younger self in them.

The agent turned to her girlfriend to try and gauge her reaction and she rolled her eyes at the smirk on the woman's lips as she released her hand and grabbed what appeared to be a school picture.

"You was so cute," she cooed.

Ava blew out a breath of frustration and narrowed her eyes, "you do realise that I could ask Gideon to show your team pictures of you at any time."

Sara's eyebrows shot up at the threat. Even if Ava and Gideon had gotten off on a rocky start, Sara had quickly realised that the AI seemed to actually ship their relationship more than anyone else on board the ship. It, therefore, stood to reason that the computer would have no problem selling her out for revenge.

The blonde placed her picture back on the side table with her own eyes narrowed, before she turned back to glance at the other images. A lump formed in her throat when she recognised who the boy in the images must have been.

He looked so much like Ava. Declan Sharpe was clearly about one or two years younger than his sister and Sara felt her throat constrict when she considered how old he must have been when he died if Ava had still been in college.

Cautiously, she looked up to her girlfriend, who was now also looking at the pictures.

There was once again a blank expression on her face, which she seemed to blink out of when she realised that there were a pair of eyes on her.

The agent cleared her throat and pointed down the hall, "the kitchen is that way," she announced.

Sara took the statement to mean that she didn't want to talk about it in the hallway and she began making her way to the door that was slightly ajar.

It didn't escape her notice that the house was only sparsely decorated with Christmas decorations and she wondered when the last time was that the Sharpe's had actually celebrated the holiday was. She pushed past this thought when she got to the door and pushed it open at the same time as removing the woolly hat from her head.

The kitchen was exactly what she was imagining it would be when she saw the type of neighbourhood this was. There was a small breakfast table at which sat a middle-aged man with a mug of coffee and a closed book next to the beverage. Emma was stood at a counter busying herself with preparing what she was planning to serve for dinner in a couple of hours.

The man looked up at the sound of the door opening and his eyes widened at the sight of the blonde who entered.

Ava stepped in behind her as she placed her bag on the floor and began to unbutton her coat as she frowned at the man.

"Dad?" she asked, as if she was worried that there was actually something wrong with him.

Harvey Sharpe looked over to the agent which seemed to bring him out of whatever shock he had gone into and he smiled broadly.

"Aves," she smiled, seemingly forgetting for a moment whatever he had been thinking as he rose from the table to come over to give the woman a hug that could rival the one from her mother.

Ava hugged him back and looked over to Sara to make sure that she didn't have a smirk on her face because of the nickname, but surely enough she did, and she rolled her eyes.

Finally the man released her and moved some hair out of the woman's eyes.

Ava smiled weakly at him and looked over to her mother who was watching the exchange with a huge smile on her face, and perhaps some tears pricking at the corner of her eyes?

However, the tender moment ended, as Harvey Sharpe turned to the other blonde and stared for a moment longer, before he looked back over to his daughter and asked, "how did you meet the White Canary?"

Sara's eyebrows shot up surprise and Ava resisted the urge to sigh deeply.

She knew that her father had always been a huge superhero nerd, so she wasn't too surprised that he would keep up with everything Vigilante and Metahuman related, but that thought that Sara never wore a mask (even when being rewarded by the President of the United States) never quite occurred to her.

It seemed to finally occur to Sara that her identity was not exactly a secret anymore and looked at Ava for help.

"Er…we met at the mall. Sara works at Sink, Shower & Stuff," Ava replied.

The captain of the Waverider narrowed her eyes at her girlfriend, who just shrugged her shoulders as nonchalantly as possible.

"Used to work there," Sara interjected, "I quit for.…a better opportunity."

"Right, I meant that Sara used to work there," Ava said through gritted teeth.

Harvey looked between the pair, feeling very much like he was missing something, and then glanced over to his wife who just shrugged to tell him that she had no idea.

When Emma had informed him that Ava would be visiting with her girlfriend, Sara Lance, he had of course Googled her to make sure that he knew who was dating his little girl. Of course, he had immediately found himself 'fanboying' when the images of the Dominator invasion came up and then the more recent crisis which the papers had called 'Crisis from Earth-X'. His wife had assured him that there was no way that Ava could be dating that Sara Lance. Once he got passed his initial shock, he was sure that he would start to worry about his daughter dating someone who put themselves in danger so often, but the shock had to pass first.

"So you know who the Flash is?" he asked, deciding to push aside how weird Ava and Sara were being about how they met.

Sara frowned and nodded, "yeah I do…" she replied uncertainly and when she saw the smile growing on his face, she added, "and I know the Green Arrow."

Ava brought her hand up to cover her face and Sara couldn't help but smile at how cute the usually composed agent looked when her dad was embarrassing her.

She turned back to said dad who looked so excited that Sara couldn't help but feel slightly proud of herself, she had never really considered herself to be the type to impress parents, especially since she had been legally pronounced dead…twice. She just hoped that Harvey didn't ask who the Flash and Green Arrow were since she was fairly certain that Barry and Oliver would kill her for revealing their identities just to impress her girlfriend's dad.

"Harvey," Emma said in fond exasperation as she came over and placed her hand on her husband's shoulder, "I think we should let the girls settle in and get ready for dinner before you start bombarding them with questions."

The man sighed and nodded, looking somewhat dejected before he went back over to the table to finish his drink.

Ava smiled at her mom and Sara grinned at how natural it looked.

"Your room is exactly how you left it, dear," Mrs Sharpe said as she placed her hand on her daughter's check for a moment, like she was making sure that she was making sure that she was actually here, "dinner will be in about an hour."

The agent nodded and reached down to grab her bag and used her free hand to take Sara's so that she could lead her to the stairs. Sara frowned when she felt how tight her girlfriend's hand was around hers, she was still clearly anxious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews would be much appreciated, they will help with motivation to write XD

**Author's Note:**

> I have a second chapter planned where Sara and Ava visit Ava's family, let me know if you're interested and I'll start writing it asap :)


End file.
